There are plum and pear trees planted. The garden is sprouting beans, peas, greens, tomatoes and peppers. Everything is in order for the best summer yet!
I finished the final rain barrel installation this morning and I am glad to say that, after a nice heavy day of rain, I've got about 220 gallons of rainwater waiting for me to use it.
I've begun work on the chicken coop. I will post some progress images soon. The main garden bed has been prepped and I've planted some popcorn as well as kale and other greens there as well.
I've got Nasturtium flowers growing on my edges and I even got my hands on a moon flower to help the local bats this year.
This is going to be a banner season!
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
Life after PDC
I am currently working on several projects right now. Most of them will come to fruition in the spring. I don't want to make any promises at this time, but the projects include some permaculture design, chickens, blacksmith work, gardening in my backyard and potentially doing some community work in the Brightmoor area in preparation for a bigger move one day soon.
Not to be too cryptic about everything, I'll disclose some info on some of these. The foundations for the chicken coop are in…sort of. I plan to break ground on this project after the weather breaks in the spring. Finally… I have the design pretty much planned and now I just have to take the time to complete it. It should be fun once I get started, which will make it a bit easier to complete.
In conjunction with the coop, I am planning on having the gigantic oak tree removed from the middle of my back garden and after that, I'll dig a couple of swales and get some fruit trees started. This will be in addition to increasing the garden space again this year and getting the vegetables in early using cold frames and maybe even the greenhouse chicken coop.
In the meantime, I'm working on building a small blacksmithing operation. At first glance, most of what I'm doing with this is going to look pretty sad. I'm building my forge from found and recycled materials. I got my hands on a boatload of incredibly old tools, some that my grandfather used 70+ years ago. Everything is old and a bit beat up, but we have all the tools and supplies that we need to get started now. The plan is to begin by attempting to forge some knives and cutting tools. We may try to make some of our own blacksmithing tools as well. I'll be posting images and videos as we are going along.
More to come in the next day or so...
Not to be too cryptic about everything, I'll disclose some info on some of these. The foundations for the chicken coop are in…sort of. I plan to break ground on this project after the weather breaks in the spring. Finally… I have the design pretty much planned and now I just have to take the time to complete it. It should be fun once I get started, which will make it a bit easier to complete.
In conjunction with the coop, I am planning on having the gigantic oak tree removed from the middle of my back garden and after that, I'll dig a couple of swales and get some fruit trees started. This will be in addition to increasing the garden space again this year and getting the vegetables in early using cold frames and maybe even the greenhouse chicken coop.
In the meantime, I'm working on building a small blacksmithing operation. At first glance, most of what I'm doing with this is going to look pretty sad. I'm building my forge from found and recycled materials. I got my hands on a boatload of incredibly old tools, some that my grandfather used 70+ years ago. Everything is old and a bit beat up, but we have all the tools and supplies that we need to get started now. The plan is to begin by attempting to forge some knives and cutting tools. We may try to make some of our own blacksmithing tools as well. I'll be posting images and videos as we are going along.
More to come in the next day or so...
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Permaculture Design Exercise
These are the images and a short description of my final design exercise in my certification course. I am hoping that I don't get an email from the institute telling me that I have issues with my design. The way I understand it, if I don't hear from them, I'll have my certificate within a couple of weeks.
I chose a piece of property that I may one day be able to develop, since it is family land. It belongs to my grandfather.
The total property is 40 acres or about 16.5 hectares. The boundaries form an upside down L shape and there is a small creek that runs through the middle of the property year-round. There is a house on the site, along with several outbuilding structures near the main road. There is a small marshy area in the NW corner of the property and lots of wooded land around the borders.
I chose to place a new house site in one of the empty grassy fields, SW of the existing house, because of the contours within that field and the access to water and other resources. Building an earth-sheltered house into the side of a hill works better because you can add features to the house using the elevation change of the hill that help with the natural cooling and heating cycles of the year. being on a hill also provides me with a much broader sun exposure during the winter months and that is important for both the greenhouse and the solar array I will be implementing to provide power to the house and outbuildings.
My current design establishes an approx. 2000 sq ft house, a 625 sq ft animal shed, a 150 sq ft blacksmith shop and a small chicken coop near the house. The house itself will be earth-sheltered and be made of primarily wood harvested from the property and cob or cob mixed with other recycled materials. This is kind of the way they build earthships, except earthships are way more extravagant than you need for everyday living. The other outbuildings will use either timber and cob or timber, cob and recycled bricks. The only thing I would build using newly acquired materials is the blacksmith forge, which would be composed primarily of refractory bricks, surrounded by cob.
There is a 625 sq ft (these numbers are not set in stone and only came from the fact that I used a specific scale on the grid paper to make sure everything would fit to scale) kitchen garden just outside of the house to the West, with an herb spiral next to it. These will supply the house with all sorts of everyday needs in both herb and vegetable produce. The main crop garden is in Zone 2 and measures about 10,000 sq ft. This is where you grow all of your crops needed for year round living. huge amounts of root crops for winter root cellar storage are grown here as well as the long germinating varieties of beans and corn and tomatoes and squash...etc. The kitchen garden is composed of a lot of greens and small everyday meal plants, where the main garden grows the large plants that we harvest and preserve or freeze.
There are several food forest sites all over the property where we grow fruit trees along swale mounds and understory berry bushes and other edibles. I have designed 3 dams on the property as well to attempt to harness the water on the site so that I can pump some to the house and use the rest for irrigation and possibly even aquaculture (fish) one day. The stuff in the bottom of a fish pond is about the most amazing fertilizer you can find anywhere.
I think that about covers it. There is plenty more that I could say, but I'll just post the images and you'll get the point I think.
This is an actual topographic image of the site with the boundaries superimposed.
This is my design. It is definitely subject to change since this is my first attempt ever.
An image of the house site with the outbuildings. Hopefully it isn't hard to understand.
Finally, some of that food forest I was talking about. This picture also shows one of my designed dams.
With any luck, I'll be doing this kind of thing for a living within the next year or so. The design aspect is only one of many in permaculture. I also get to go out into the field and survey and move earth to build dams and swales. There is home design and building. And, of course, I'll also be doing some blacksmithing and selling my products to people online and locally.
I chose a piece of property that I may one day be able to develop, since it is family land. It belongs to my grandfather.
The total property is 40 acres or about 16.5 hectares. The boundaries form an upside down L shape and there is a small creek that runs through the middle of the property year-round. There is a house on the site, along with several outbuilding structures near the main road. There is a small marshy area in the NW corner of the property and lots of wooded land around the borders.
I chose to place a new house site in one of the empty grassy fields, SW of the existing house, because of the contours within that field and the access to water and other resources. Building an earth-sheltered house into the side of a hill works better because you can add features to the house using the elevation change of the hill that help with the natural cooling and heating cycles of the year. being on a hill also provides me with a much broader sun exposure during the winter months and that is important for both the greenhouse and the solar array I will be implementing to provide power to the house and outbuildings.
My current design establishes an approx. 2000 sq ft house, a 625 sq ft animal shed, a 150 sq ft blacksmith shop and a small chicken coop near the house. The house itself will be earth-sheltered and be made of primarily wood harvested from the property and cob or cob mixed with other recycled materials. This is kind of the way they build earthships, except earthships are way more extravagant than you need for everyday living. The other outbuildings will use either timber and cob or timber, cob and recycled bricks. The only thing I would build using newly acquired materials is the blacksmith forge, which would be composed primarily of refractory bricks, surrounded by cob.
There is a 625 sq ft (these numbers are not set in stone and only came from the fact that I used a specific scale on the grid paper to make sure everything would fit to scale) kitchen garden just outside of the house to the West, with an herb spiral next to it. These will supply the house with all sorts of everyday needs in both herb and vegetable produce. The main crop garden is in Zone 2 and measures about 10,000 sq ft. This is where you grow all of your crops needed for year round living. huge amounts of root crops for winter root cellar storage are grown here as well as the long germinating varieties of beans and corn and tomatoes and squash...etc. The kitchen garden is composed of a lot of greens and small everyday meal plants, where the main garden grows the large plants that we harvest and preserve or freeze.
There are several food forest sites all over the property where we grow fruit trees along swale mounds and understory berry bushes and other edibles. I have designed 3 dams on the property as well to attempt to harness the water on the site so that I can pump some to the house and use the rest for irrigation and possibly even aquaculture (fish) one day. The stuff in the bottom of a fish pond is about the most amazing fertilizer you can find anywhere.
I think that about covers it. There is plenty more that I could say, but I'll just post the images and you'll get the point I think.
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
With any luck, I'll be doing this kind of thing for a living within the next year or so. The design aspect is only one of many in permaculture. I also get to go out into the field and survey and move earth to build dams and swales. There is home design and building. And, of course, I'll also be doing some blacksmithing and selling my products to people online and locally.
Permaculture Certification
Summer has pretty much passed me by. Between working on the rental house we bought in May and trying to keep up with life I barely had time to go out into the garden and look at the plants this year.
Some things grew marvelously without me. Other things really needed my attention and, therefore, were not as strong as they could have otherwise been. Here are a couple of pictures:
Pretty nice, right? And this is what it turned into:
Jungle...
Some things grew marvelously without me. Other things really needed my attention and, therefore, were not as strong as they could have otherwise been. Here are a couple of pictures:
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| From Garden |
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| From Garden |
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| From Garden |
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| From Garden |
I have learned a few things this season, which makes up for the lack of success I achieved in the beds. I think the first lesson I am drawing from this year's garden is that my tomato plants need a bed of their own in which they can just consume all the space.
The best thing to come from this summer was my completion of the first of my certifications in Permaculture Design. I was hesitant to take a course online due to the lack of hands on experience. But then in March, Geoff Lawton offered an online certification that promised to be incredibly comprehensive and worth the money. I have to say, it definitely was.
I submitted my final design on September 26 and I haven't heard anything to tell me there were issues so I'm hoping that means I have a certificate coming in the mail from Australia. I'll post the design elements in my next update.
So now I have to tear the garden apart and start several large batches of compost from the green materials in the garden and the dead leaves that will shower my yard in the coming weeks.
I almost forgot to mention that I also finished a Master Composter class through my local county this summer. So I know everything there is to know about municipal yard waste composting. Fun times!
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Garden Progress
It seems as though I can never get the garden started at the time I'd like to. This year, that worked out in my favor.
I've never been really keen on forcing my plants to survive events that they couldn't normally survive on their own. This includes covering for frost. Now, to be fair, I didn't plant any of my cole crops during the proper time in which they should have been planted. I also didn't get my tomato or cucumber seedlings transplanted until a few days into June. This all turned out to be a very good thing because we got one last frost here on the Sunday before memorial day. The community garden where I have a few things planted this year lost a lot of crops due to the very late frost. I got lucky because I was too busy to plant anything until June 3rd!
Here are a couple of updated pictures of the garden in my back yard. I still have one bed to cut and prep which will host my beans and corn and some root veggies. The largest bed in the photo is half sewn with buckwheat and amaranth and the rest is tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, basil, celery and peppers. The 5x5 that you see in the photos has been prepped and contains lettuces, spinach, herbs, garlic and onions.
I double dug the half of the garden which would have the food crop in it. Double digging is probably the hardest garden-related activity I've ever performed. The digging is relatively easy, but my beds were littered with roots and so moving one trench into the next was a chore. The roots held everything together except the top layer, which would landslide into the trench ahead or behind. The whole point of double digging it to loosen 24" deep while maintaining soil structure and I found that to be a very difficult thing to do well. Maybe I'll try again in a couple of seasons.
I found some info online about "trench planting" tomatoes. I had a couple that had grown a bit wonky so I tried the trenching method. Of the 8 plants I put in, I trenched 3 so we will see how well they do.
The final step was to layer about 1.5" thick of compost on top of the beds. This step is crucial, as compost has an amazing water retention factor and acts somewhat like mulch with water. The only hard part about using only compost is that it is amazingly suited to grow things, which means any kind of weed or grass seed that ends up in it grows amazingly well. Compost added every year also greatly helps the structure of your soil. Layer after layer builds up to be a lovely high structure of organic matter and nutrients.
I began building the beginnings of my new composter a while back. Here are some images of that. I still have 2 more frames that same size to build, as well as a door for each and a lid.
I ran out of leftover cedar for the side with one plank to go! I have some more on standby now until I have some time to cut it and install it. This container is about 3 cubic feet, the size required to successfully hot compost all compostable materials (including vegetable cellulose plastics). The next 2 units will attach to this one and will also be about 3 cubic feet. I also plan on building another unit near the chicken coop once that is completed to allow for the composting of manure for fertilizer.
I suppose that is enough for this post. I will be updated more and more as the summer progresses and my projects get more complicated. I am thinking I'll also highlight some of the tools I use from time to time for reference material.
I need to work on a new sign off. Stan Lee calls everyone "true believers" and most newscasters say something like "stay classy San Diego". I need a little quip to end with. I'm thinking something like "Until next time, keep growing!" but anything I come up with sounds stupid in my mind...so just check back here frequently this summer for more updates.
I've never been really keen on forcing my plants to survive events that they couldn't normally survive on their own. This includes covering for frost. Now, to be fair, I didn't plant any of my cole crops during the proper time in which they should have been planted. I also didn't get my tomato or cucumber seedlings transplanted until a few days into June. This all turned out to be a very good thing because we got one last frost here on the Sunday before memorial day. The community garden where I have a few things planted this year lost a lot of crops due to the very late frost. I got lucky because I was too busy to plant anything until June 3rd!
Here are a couple of updated pictures of the garden in my back yard. I still have one bed to cut and prep which will host my beans and corn and some root veggies. The largest bed in the photo is half sewn with buckwheat and amaranth and the rest is tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, basil, celery and peppers. The 5x5 that you see in the photos has been prepped and contains lettuces, spinach, herbs, garlic and onions.
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| From Garden |
I double dug the half of the garden which would have the food crop in it. Double digging is probably the hardest garden-related activity I've ever performed. The digging is relatively easy, but my beds were littered with roots and so moving one trench into the next was a chore. The roots held everything together except the top layer, which would landslide into the trench ahead or behind. The whole point of double digging it to loosen 24" deep while maintaining soil structure and I found that to be a very difficult thing to do well. Maybe I'll try again in a couple of seasons.
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| From Garden |
I found some info online about "trench planting" tomatoes. I had a couple that had grown a bit wonky so I tried the trenching method. Of the 8 plants I put in, I trenched 3 so we will see how well they do.
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| From Garden |
The final step was to layer about 1.5" thick of compost on top of the beds. This step is crucial, as compost has an amazing water retention factor and acts somewhat like mulch with water. The only hard part about using only compost is that it is amazingly suited to grow things, which means any kind of weed or grass seed that ends up in it grows amazingly well. Compost added every year also greatly helps the structure of your soil. Layer after layer builds up to be a lovely high structure of organic matter and nutrients.
I began building the beginnings of my new composter a while back. Here are some images of that. I still have 2 more frames that same size to build, as well as a door for each and a lid.
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
I ran out of leftover cedar for the side with one plank to go! I have some more on standby now until I have some time to cut it and install it. This container is about 3 cubic feet, the size required to successfully hot compost all compostable materials (including vegetable cellulose plastics). The next 2 units will attach to this one and will also be about 3 cubic feet. I also plan on building another unit near the chicken coop once that is completed to allow for the composting of manure for fertilizer.
I suppose that is enough for this post. I will be updated more and more as the summer progresses and my projects get more complicated. I am thinking I'll also highlight some of the tools I use from time to time for reference material.
I need to work on a new sign off. Stan Lee calls everyone "true believers" and most newscasters say something like "stay classy San Diego". I need a little quip to end with. I'm thinking something like "Until next time, keep growing!" but anything I come up with sounds stupid in my mind...so just check back here frequently this summer for more updates.
Monday, May 27, 2013
My ever expanding universe
I have been making some big changes around the garden. I'm adding a new bed and expanding the existing garden space to make a total of about 100 sq ft. I'm also double digging at least one of the spaces to Grow Biointensive standards.
I've uploaded some new pictures into the garden album to show before and after.
In addition to all of this, I'm also in the process of preparing the windows I scavenged to make the greenhouse/chicken coop. I have them mostly cleaned now and I have to replace some of the broken panes and then scrape and seal the entire window. Each one is about 35" x 45", so I figure if I turn them on their sides and stack them vertically, I'll be about half a window too big. Luckily, I have other ones of various sizes that I picked up earlier this year and I think I might just be able to patch them together. The bonus to all of this is that I don't have to purchase any new windows for the entire coop because I have enough for the greenhouse wall as well as the sides of the greenhouse area and the sides of the coop.
My seedlings are doing exceedingly well in the basement under the lights. Too well in fact. I needed to transplant them a week or two ago. I've been hardening them off slowly, but lucky for me I didn't plant them in the beds yet. We frosted for (hopefully) the last time a few nights ago and I have been too lazy to get everything into the ground so nothing of mine died. Some of the members at the GNG weren't so lucky.
I have one of my 2 plots at the GNG prepped and potatoes planted. I attempted to save some strawberry plants that were in the bed already, but the severe heat and no rain we've had this month did not favor them. I think maybe 1/3 survived so I guess we will see what comes of that. I also have strawberries in PVC tubes at the homestead, so we won't be without this year hopefully.
I'm taking my PDC online this summer. I know how oxymoronic it sounds to take a class on permaculture design over the internet, but it was a good deal and Geoff Lawton is teaching it. I'm into the third week now and I have to admit, there is a lot about the subject that I don't know yet. I've been independently studying this for over a year now, but permaculture is still an amazingly complex philosophy.
Here are a couple of before images of the garden:
I've uploaded some new pictures into the garden album to show before and after.
In addition to all of this, I'm also in the process of preparing the windows I scavenged to make the greenhouse/chicken coop. I have them mostly cleaned now and I have to replace some of the broken panes and then scrape and seal the entire window. Each one is about 35" x 45", so I figure if I turn them on their sides and stack them vertically, I'll be about half a window too big. Luckily, I have other ones of various sizes that I picked up earlier this year and I think I might just be able to patch them together. The bonus to all of this is that I don't have to purchase any new windows for the entire coop because I have enough for the greenhouse wall as well as the sides of the greenhouse area and the sides of the coop.
My seedlings are doing exceedingly well in the basement under the lights. Too well in fact. I needed to transplant them a week or two ago. I've been hardening them off slowly, but lucky for me I didn't plant them in the beds yet. We frosted for (hopefully) the last time a few nights ago and I have been too lazy to get everything into the ground so nothing of mine died. Some of the members at the GNG weren't so lucky.
I have one of my 2 plots at the GNG prepped and potatoes planted. I attempted to save some strawberry plants that were in the bed already, but the severe heat and no rain we've had this month did not favor them. I think maybe 1/3 survived so I guess we will see what comes of that. I also have strawberries in PVC tubes at the homestead, so we won't be without this year hopefully.
I'm taking my PDC online this summer. I know how oxymoronic it sounds to take a class on permaculture design over the internet, but it was a good deal and Geoff Lawton is teaching it. I'm into the third week now and I have to admit, there is a lot about the subject that I don't know yet. I've been independently studying this for over a year now, but permaculture is still an amazingly complex philosophy.
Here are a couple of before images of the garden:
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| From Garden |
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| From Garden |
Saturday, April 6, 2013
It's finally time to plant
Just a quick update, as it is about 2:30 in the morning. I planted the first round of seedlings tonight. I had a Hydrofarm brand seed starting kit left over from last year and one of the principles in permaculture is "produce no waste". So instead of chucking the thing, I choose to make use of it. I put in 18 spanish onions seeds, 10 roma tomatoes, 14 Rutgers tomatoes, 18 brussel sprouts, 16 straight 8 cucumbers and 5 strawberries.
I picked a few of these based on length of time to maturity and the rest I just randomly selected. Tomatoes tend to survive transplanting better when they are large. I also found out a new method to plant my tomatoes this year, which may lead to larger yield. It is called "trench planting" and you can read more about it here. Basically, you lay the seedling flat into a trench to get a better root structure from the plant. I can't wait to try it out.
I have made significant progress in the way of chickens as well. I have the area where the coop/greenhouse will be placed leveled and prepped. I also dug the holes for the cement footings of the coop and I'm now ready to mix some concrete and get the posts anchored. I haven't gotten very far on the framework yet, but I'm still holding out hope to have the project done by the end of May.
My next step on the gardens is to get all 3 beds prepped when we have some warm weather. I was offered 2 plots at the GNG and I have my 102 sq ft holding in my back yard. I still have some work to do with the expansion behind the house, but it should be relatively simple considering I won't be building any new raised beds, but will be transferring the ones already built to the additional spaces. The beds at the GNG seem to be in relatively decent shape and I was able to get 2 next to each other. My only issue there is that my bed spaces run north and south of each other so I won't be building any trellises for pole beans or peas.
I realize now that I still have some seeds to purchase: peas, comfrey, herbs for the spiral...etc. I guess I better get on that. I got my potatoes in the mail a few days ago and realized I could have just gone and bought a 5 lb. bag at the grocer's. At least these are certified organic and I know that they haven't been riddled with pesticides and weed killers.
I will be sure to post a couple of pictures of the coop footings and other things as I go. I also hope to do a tutorial on both composting and double-digging garden beds in the near future on this blog. I might even venture into video this summer, who knows?!
I picked a few of these based on length of time to maturity and the rest I just randomly selected. Tomatoes tend to survive transplanting better when they are large. I also found out a new method to plant my tomatoes this year, which may lead to larger yield. It is called "trench planting" and you can read more about it here. Basically, you lay the seedling flat into a trench to get a better root structure from the plant. I can't wait to try it out.
I have made significant progress in the way of chickens as well. I have the area where the coop/greenhouse will be placed leveled and prepped. I also dug the holes for the cement footings of the coop and I'm now ready to mix some concrete and get the posts anchored. I haven't gotten very far on the framework yet, but I'm still holding out hope to have the project done by the end of May.
My next step on the gardens is to get all 3 beds prepped when we have some warm weather. I was offered 2 plots at the GNG and I have my 102 sq ft holding in my back yard. I still have some work to do with the expansion behind the house, but it should be relatively simple considering I won't be building any new raised beds, but will be transferring the ones already built to the additional spaces. The beds at the GNG seem to be in relatively decent shape and I was able to get 2 next to each other. My only issue there is that my bed spaces run north and south of each other so I won't be building any trellises for pole beans or peas.
I realize now that I still have some seeds to purchase: peas, comfrey, herbs for the spiral...etc. I guess I better get on that. I got my potatoes in the mail a few days ago and realized I could have just gone and bought a 5 lb. bag at the grocer's. At least these are certified organic and I know that they haven't been riddled with pesticides and weed killers.
I will be sure to post a couple of pictures of the coop footings and other things as I go. I also hope to do a tutorial on both composting and double-digging garden beds in the near future on this blog. I might even venture into video this summer, who knows?!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Simple Project: Waterproofing Canvas Shoes
Waterproof? Well, maybe more like water-resistant...but still.
When you are vegan, you don't buy leather. One major downside to this is that most canvas shoes are not coated, which means that you have to shop carefully to find the shoes with a rubber covered toe or, at the very least, something with some substance to it.
We recently upped our hipster cred by getting some Toms brand shoes. The vegan version is essentially a piece of canvas attached to a recycled rubber sole. When it is wet outside, they absorb water almost instantly. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, however, we have discovered a method for keeping our feet dry. Since I did this myself and took these pictures during my own process, I will not be crediting another site or blog for this.
Check it out:
Step 1 - get a small chunk of beeswax. Most natural food stores carry this in little bars. Take the wax and rub it against the canvas HARD. You need to deposit a lot of wax on the canvas for this step.
Step 2 - Cover the whole shoe well. Make sure you get in all the little cracks and crags. The place to overdo it is along the seam between the sole and the body of the shoe.
Step 3 - Now take the shoe and run your hairdryer on high and hot all over the shoe. Move slowly over each part and make sure the wax melts and absorbs completely into the canvas.
Step 4 - Test out the final product. Run the tap over the toe. Does the water soak in or does it roll off? Hopefully it just rolls off.
It's a beautiful thing! Try it for yourself. Now, these are Toms and I haven't tried this method on other brands of canvas shoes, but the premise is solid and should apply to pretty much any canvas shoe. I will try it on some of my other shoes soon and report back on my findings. In the meantime, if you have Toms, this works!
When you are vegan, you don't buy leather. One major downside to this is that most canvas shoes are not coated, which means that you have to shop carefully to find the shoes with a rubber covered toe or, at the very least, something with some substance to it.
We recently upped our hipster cred by getting some Toms brand shoes. The vegan version is essentially a piece of canvas attached to a recycled rubber sole. When it is wet outside, they absorb water almost instantly. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, however, we have discovered a method for keeping our feet dry. Since I did this myself and took these pictures during my own process, I will not be crediting another site or blog for this.
Check it out:
Step 1 - get a small chunk of beeswax. Most natural food stores carry this in little bars. Take the wax and rub it against the canvas HARD. You need to deposit a lot of wax on the canvas for this step.
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| From Simple Projects |
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| From Simple Projects |
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| From Simple Projects |
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| From Simple Projects |
Thursday, March 14, 2013
The window situation
I may have mentioned before that I am building a chicken coop with an adjacent greenhouse space to serve multiple purposes. The greenhouse will be a geothermal heating room for the coop, a place to propagate my seedlings in the spring and a storage area for garden tools and supplies. I'm going to build the window wall from old windows.
This morning I met with a lady I met at the Eastern Market Antique store who told me she had a "warehouse full of windows". Little did I know what she meant was that she had a warehouse with windows that I had to cut out of the walls... either way, I am getting enough old warehouse windows to do my whole greenhouse.
I also had purchased a few windows from random places, and I had one or two in my basement. So I guess I'm building several cold frames now as well, which is good because I know people who can use them.
I go to pick up the warehouse windows Tuesday. Hopefully the guy who is taking them out can get them without breaking them. We shall see. I'll post some pictures when all is said and done.
This morning I met with a lady I met at the Eastern Market Antique store who told me she had a "warehouse full of windows". Little did I know what she meant was that she had a warehouse with windows that I had to cut out of the walls... either way, I am getting enough old warehouse windows to do my whole greenhouse.
I also had purchased a few windows from random places, and I had one or two in my basement. So I guess I'm building several cold frames now as well, which is good because I know people who can use them.
I go to pick up the warehouse windows Tuesday. Hopefully the guy who is taking them out can get them without breaking them. We shall see. I'll post some pictures when all is said and done.
Let's Talk Dirty...as in Compost
I just finished my first class in my Master Composter program and let me tell you, it was amazing!! The material we are covering and the possibilities for community outreach and education are very promising.
I also attended my first co-op garden meeting this week and I already see that I'm going to fit in nicely there. I like a lot of what they are doing already and I see plenty of opportunities to add my input.
In the coming months I have several more composting classes to finish the program. Part of the requirements include building a composter and getting a heap started as well as 12 hours of volunteer work in multiple different settings. I'm scheduled to help run a demonstration table at both the Greenfest at the zoo and Vegfest, which is being held in Novi this year. I contacted my guy through the Ferndale Environmental Sustainability Commission to potentially get myself on the roster to head up a composting workshop in Ferndale this summer.
Part of my volunteering can come from simply working in the community garden, which is awesome since I sporadically volunteered to lead a Wednesday evening work night at the garden. Hopefully, after I've taken a few more classes, I'll be versed enough to hold a workshop for members of the garden on starting and maintaining a compost system.
As I mentioned previously, there are multiple methods to composting. The method that SOCWA, the organization hosting the master class, uses is primarily cold composting. I have already noticed variations in the way they teach how cold composting works, however. This is of great interest to me, since I plan on studying different methods this summer. My plan is to build several enclosures and test different methods to find out if they work the way they should. Provided I have the time, I will be building 3 new composters in my backyard. One will be a double unit, near the house for kitchen scraps and yard waste. One side will be a hot system, the other side will be cold. I hope to get one going near the chicken coop as well and one on the opposite side of the yard.
I will sketch a site map this week and post it so that what I am talking about will be easier to envision.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Permaculture 101
I've been schooling myself in permaculture all winter. I've been waiting for a class to present itself in the Detroit area for 2013 and so far it seems like I'm out of luck. Instead of relying on someone else to offer me a program, I've pieced one together myself. Basically it consists of purchasing way too many books and ignoring everyone around me for large chunks of time while I read about swales and edge and diversity of species...etc.
In addition to all of this reading, I've been proactive about learning through experience. I joined a co-op garden on the edge of Ferndale and I also enrolled in a composting class which runs twice a month in March, April and May. I plan on volunteering a few hours a week down at the CSA we joined last summer. I wanted to work with people who have already established a system and these folks offer a "work share" to make the program more affordable. So I guess I'm not technically "volunteering" but I'm really only taking what I grow and I'm not getting money for helping...so yeah.
This summer looks to be quite busy for us. I addition to the 10 x 10 plot I'm getting from the co-op, I'm also planning an expansion on my backyard garden space. I'll be essentially doubling my growing area. I'm using John Jeavons' GROW BIOINTENSIVE method to garden this year, which adds a bit more prep work, but should decrease the amount of labor time I spend in the beds. I'm definitely building my chicken coop this spring and we hope to have chickens in it by May or June at the latest. Our front porch needs to be demolished and rebuilt and then for the few days that I'm not doing all of this, we want to remodel our bathroom. Overwhelmed yet? Me too!
Here are a couple new pictures. My ever expanding library (I think I have at least 3 or 4 more books since this was taken.) and the preliminary images of the coop plans. I will post a high res image as part of the series I'll be doing during construction.
In addition to all of this reading, I've been proactive about learning through experience. I joined a co-op garden on the edge of Ferndale and I also enrolled in a composting class which runs twice a month in March, April and May. I plan on volunteering a few hours a week down at the CSA we joined last summer. I wanted to work with people who have already established a system and these folks offer a "work share" to make the program more affordable. So I guess I'm not technically "volunteering" but I'm really only taking what I grow and I'm not getting money for helping...so yeah.
This summer looks to be quite busy for us. I addition to the 10 x 10 plot I'm getting from the co-op, I'm also planning an expansion on my backyard garden space. I'll be essentially doubling my growing area. I'm using John Jeavons' GROW BIOINTENSIVE method to garden this year, which adds a bit more prep work, but should decrease the amount of labor time I spend in the beds. I'm definitely building my chicken coop this spring and we hope to have chickens in it by May or June at the latest. Our front porch needs to be demolished and rebuilt and then for the few days that I'm not doing all of this, we want to remodel our bathroom. Overwhelmed yet? Me too!
Here are a couple new pictures. My ever expanding library (I think I have at least 3 or 4 more books since this was taken.) and the preliminary images of the coop plans. I will post a high res image as part of the series I'll be doing during construction.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Make your own dirt...
In this post I am going to be discussing a few different methods for composting, listing some of the steps to each method, but mostly going over pros and cons of each method. I will cite some sources at the bottom for further reading. If more information is required, use the comment section to ask questions.
Composting is something I've become quite interested in lately. I've found many different sources on how to do it, using many different methods. It seems to me that, depending on what your overall goal is, you may need to choose a specific method of composting, rather than just setting up a heap and throwing all of your organic waste into it.
For instance, a heap made from all sorts of food and yard waste may not contain the proper nutrients your soil needs when it comes time to introduce your compost to your garden. Plant yield can vary greatly, depending on the organic matter in which it grows.
I was always under the impression that taking compost from your heap and establishing it as the primary soil in your garden was a top-notch idea. According to one of my books, I was dead wrong. Compost on its own only plays a fractional part in the production of food. Adding compost to the soil that already exists, and introducing other materials as needed seems to be the ideal way of growing. In fact, the Biointensive method only asks for a 1-2 inch layer of compost on the very top of the garden at the beginning of the season, meaning that the other parts of the soil are just as, if not more, important for the proper propagation of species.
One method of composting is the "rapid" compost method. This is a simple formula which requires more work from you but yields much quicker breakdown as a result. Using something like 2/3 brown and 1/3 green ingredients, you monitor the moisture on a daily basis and turn the compost everyday as well. Within 2 weeks you have a fully composted heap, ready for use. The major downside to this method, based on the reading I've done, is that when organic material breaks down that quickly, a lot of the vital nutrients are released in gas form from the pile. Turning the heap causes air to get to the nitrogenous "green" material faster. This is why the pile converts quickly, but the problem comes from the fact that much of the important microbial life in the pile, the stuff that helps strong root growth in the garden, cannot survive in the high-nitrogen environment and the resulting compost is of inferior quality.
Now, there are 2 somewhat opposite techniques which both yield highly nutritive compost, but each has benefits and flaws. These two are the "cold" and "hot" compost methods. "Cold" composting consists of getting the proper mixture of brown and green materials, as well as a small amount of garden soil introduced to the pile. Ordinarily, one would loosen the base of the heap about 12 inches down and then place a layer of sticks on the bottom to provide a solid base for the pile. You then add the brown (dead leaves and plant matter), followed by the green (fresh grass clippings, leafy vegetation), and you top it off with some soil from the garden. The major downside to this method is the final step...in which you leave it alone for 4-6 months. The description of this method mentions potentially turning the heap once, about 2 months in, but otherwise this pile sits and works over time. As long as you have no urgency for compost, this seems to be the best method to get the most out of your compost. Not only does "cold" composting provide more useable compost for the material you put in, but it also provides compost with the most nutrients and microbial life.
"Hot" composting is somewhat opposite from cold, in that you turn the pile infrequently and maintain it more often. This method is necessary for breaking down items like "compostable plastics" made from vegetable materials and larger sticks and twigs. The heat required to consume a compostable bag of chips is upwards of 140-170, which you can achieve through "hot" composting. There are drawbacks to this method. First is the amount of human energy required to maintain the temperature. Second is the fact that, despite normal claims that a hot pile will kill weed seeds and small insects like aphids, the truth is that in order to actually be 100% effective, temperatures have to reach above 200.
I like to "hot" compost because it allows me to compost in the winter in Michigan. It also lets me throw things like compostable forks and coffee cup lids into my heap. There are a lot of places in the Detroit area using these materials now and, on the rare occasion that I purchase something that comes with vegetable-based plastics, I have a hot heap at home to biodegrade these items.
As I mentioned in my last post, I plan on expanding my garden and composting operation this summer. This plan includes trying each of these composting methods first-hand. I plan on using images, as well as updating with blog entries step by step as I go to find out just how well each method actually works. With any luck, they will all work well and I can send soil samples to the MSU extension office in Lansing to have the nutrients in each heap tested.
And that is my diatribe on composting. Obviously, there will be more compost conversation coming this summer, so if you love organic matter, keep checking back.
More info/citations:
Rapid Composting
Ecology Action: GROW BIOINTENSIVE method
Composting is something I've become quite interested in lately. I've found many different sources on how to do it, using many different methods. It seems to me that, depending on what your overall goal is, you may need to choose a specific method of composting, rather than just setting up a heap and throwing all of your organic waste into it.
For instance, a heap made from all sorts of food and yard waste may not contain the proper nutrients your soil needs when it comes time to introduce your compost to your garden. Plant yield can vary greatly, depending on the organic matter in which it grows.
I was always under the impression that taking compost from your heap and establishing it as the primary soil in your garden was a top-notch idea. According to one of my books, I was dead wrong. Compost on its own only plays a fractional part in the production of food. Adding compost to the soil that already exists, and introducing other materials as needed seems to be the ideal way of growing. In fact, the Biointensive method only asks for a 1-2 inch layer of compost on the very top of the garden at the beginning of the season, meaning that the other parts of the soil are just as, if not more, important for the proper propagation of species.
One method of composting is the "rapid" compost method. This is a simple formula which requires more work from you but yields much quicker breakdown as a result. Using something like 2/3 brown and 1/3 green ingredients, you monitor the moisture on a daily basis and turn the compost everyday as well. Within 2 weeks you have a fully composted heap, ready for use. The major downside to this method, based on the reading I've done, is that when organic material breaks down that quickly, a lot of the vital nutrients are released in gas form from the pile. Turning the heap causes air to get to the nitrogenous "green" material faster. This is why the pile converts quickly, but the problem comes from the fact that much of the important microbial life in the pile, the stuff that helps strong root growth in the garden, cannot survive in the high-nitrogen environment and the resulting compost is of inferior quality.
Now, there are 2 somewhat opposite techniques which both yield highly nutritive compost, but each has benefits and flaws. These two are the "cold" and "hot" compost methods. "Cold" composting consists of getting the proper mixture of brown and green materials, as well as a small amount of garden soil introduced to the pile. Ordinarily, one would loosen the base of the heap about 12 inches down and then place a layer of sticks on the bottom to provide a solid base for the pile. You then add the brown (dead leaves and plant matter), followed by the green (fresh grass clippings, leafy vegetation), and you top it off with some soil from the garden. The major downside to this method is the final step...in which you leave it alone for 4-6 months. The description of this method mentions potentially turning the heap once, about 2 months in, but otherwise this pile sits and works over time. As long as you have no urgency for compost, this seems to be the best method to get the most out of your compost. Not only does "cold" composting provide more useable compost for the material you put in, but it also provides compost with the most nutrients and microbial life.
"Hot" composting is somewhat opposite from cold, in that you turn the pile infrequently and maintain it more often. This method is necessary for breaking down items like "compostable plastics" made from vegetable materials and larger sticks and twigs. The heat required to consume a compostable bag of chips is upwards of 140-170, which you can achieve through "hot" composting. There are drawbacks to this method. First is the amount of human energy required to maintain the temperature. Second is the fact that, despite normal claims that a hot pile will kill weed seeds and small insects like aphids, the truth is that in order to actually be 100% effective, temperatures have to reach above 200.
I like to "hot" compost because it allows me to compost in the winter in Michigan. It also lets me throw things like compostable forks and coffee cup lids into my heap. There are a lot of places in the Detroit area using these materials now and, on the rare occasion that I purchase something that comes with vegetable-based plastics, I have a hot heap at home to biodegrade these items.
As I mentioned in my last post, I plan on expanding my garden and composting operation this summer. This plan includes trying each of these composting methods first-hand. I plan on using images, as well as updating with blog entries step by step as I go to find out just how well each method actually works. With any luck, they will all work well and I can send soil samples to the MSU extension office in Lansing to have the nutrients in each heap tested.
And that is my diatribe on composting. Obviously, there will be more compost conversation coming this summer, so if you love organic matter, keep checking back.
More info/citations:
Rapid Composting
Ecology Action: GROW BIOINTENSIVE method
Monday, February 4, 2013
Spring already?
Is it spring already? It sure feels like spring with the warm weather that we have had lately. While I'm concerned about the crops up north and other things that happen in Michigan when the weather is poor, I am also very excited about the possibility of starting the garden early this year.
I have been reading a new book called How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine. Long title, I know. But the title says exactly what the book is about. This summer I'm going to use the technique in this book, called Grow Biointensive. This method, unlike other methods I've used in the past, focuses almost entirely on soil health. Yield is considered a byproduct of healthy soil. This all makes a lot of sense and of course that is partially why I've never heard of it before.
Anyway, the Biointensive method is a long term commitment kind of thing, so I will have plenty to blog about in the coming months. I'm very excited about getting started with this new plan, especially with the other ideas I'm putting into the works with the city soon. I'm working on getting a lot of support from all sorts of people and so far, everyone I've pitched my ideas to has been overwhelmingly excited about the concept of inexpensive, quality food availability in Ferndale.
My home garden is also going to expand this summer. Basically, I am going to be working all day every day to accomplish all the goals I have in mind for this endeavor. I addition to the beds I have already built, in order to get to my golden 100 sq ft number, I will be expanding one bed to 4x6 and adding another bed of the same size. This will give me a total of 102 sq ft of soil to cultivate.
I also plan on setting up several more rain barrels, building a chicken coop, creating at least 3 compost heaps of varying materials and, if time allows it, still riding my bike with my kids several times a week!
My next post will be all about composting, so stay in touch for that!
I have been reading a new book called How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine. Long title, I know. But the title says exactly what the book is about. This summer I'm going to use the technique in this book, called Grow Biointensive. This method, unlike other methods I've used in the past, focuses almost entirely on soil health. Yield is considered a byproduct of healthy soil. This all makes a lot of sense and of course that is partially why I've never heard of it before.
Anyway, the Biointensive method is a long term commitment kind of thing, so I will have plenty to blog about in the coming months. I'm very excited about getting started with this new plan, especially with the other ideas I'm putting into the works with the city soon. I'm working on getting a lot of support from all sorts of people and so far, everyone I've pitched my ideas to has been overwhelmingly excited about the concept of inexpensive, quality food availability in Ferndale.
My home garden is also going to expand this summer. Basically, I am going to be working all day every day to accomplish all the goals I have in mind for this endeavor. I addition to the beds I have already built, in order to get to my golden 100 sq ft number, I will be expanding one bed to 4x6 and adding another bed of the same size. This will give me a total of 102 sq ft of soil to cultivate.
I also plan on setting up several more rain barrels, building a chicken coop, creating at least 3 compost heaps of varying materials and, if time allows it, still riding my bike with my kids several times a week!
My next post will be all about composting, so stay in touch for that!
Friday, December 7, 2012
Simple Projects to Make Life More Pleasant
I follow a few different blogs and one specific blog I follow talks about all the DIY projects you can do around the house to save money. I have decided to adopt some of this idea and run with it. This blog is the ideal place to display my findings, since we are talking about agrarian lifestyles and becoming more self-sustaining.
I am going to call this series "Simple Projects to Make Life More Pleasant". If you see a blog with the title "Simple Project" you will know there will be some sort of very good idea to make life work a little easier in that post.
When I get a few of these projects completed, I will start posting methods and results as well as ingredients. I have some friends who are doing something similar, so I will probably collaborate with them on this endeavor as well. Now that winter is upon us and I have to stay inside to do many things, I have to occupy my time with new ideas. Keep watching!
I am going to call this series "Simple Projects to Make Life More Pleasant". If you see a blog with the title "Simple Project" you will know there will be some sort of very good idea to make life work a little easier in that post.
When I get a few of these projects completed, I will start posting methods and results as well as ingredients. I have some friends who are doing something similar, so I will probably collaborate with them on this endeavor as well. Now that winter is upon us and I have to stay inside to do many things, I have to occupy my time with new ideas. Keep watching!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Rain Barrel Instructions
It has come to my attention that several people want to know just how I made my rain barrels. I think I have enough in the way of pictures to thoroughly explain this with little confusion, but just in case, I will take more pictures of the process when I get some new barrels and add them later.
To begin, you find a barrel. You cannot use just any barrel if you plan on 1.) keeping your plants alive and healthy or 2.) consuming the products of your specific plants. Basically what I'm talking about is getting your hands on "food grade" barrels. These can be 55 gallon blue drums that have held vegetables, pickles, water...or they might be brand new and have never contained anything. I prefer pickle barrels, which can be obtained conveniently nearby and are definitely safe to use.
There are just a few simple steps to consider before you are all set. Once you have the barrel chosen, you have to get a few parts from your local hardware store to make everything work. Since this project is purely objective, you can decide how best to make your barrel function. I choose to go cheap and simple so this is what I buy:
1 - "Food grade" barrel (55-58 gallons)
1 - Brass 1/2" hose bib (faucet to get water out the bottom)
1 - Brass 3/4"x1/2" hose adapter (overflow connector)
2 - Electrical conduit nuts (To hold the faucet and overflow)
4 - Reducing washers
1 - Tube of silicone waterproof sealer
1 - Can of spray on, non-toxic shellac
Once you have all of this, you bore 2 holes in the barrel. Depending on where you want your overflow to go, you can either line these holes up (one near the top of the barrel and one very close to the bottom) or you can offset the overflow to redirect the runoff water. Since I was setting my barrels up in series to collect more water, I set my overflow 90 degrees to the left of my spigot.
In this picture, you can see that once the barrel is up on the stand, the faucet will drop water away from the house, but the overflow will direct water from the top of the barrel into the one next to it.
The problem that I have with a sealed system is that I have a giant oak tree that canvases most of my back yard and part of my roof. If any amount of leaf matter was to fall into the gutter and go down the spout, it would be a task to take everything apart to clear a clog. I opted to have an open top system and to set my downspout to simply dump water onto the barrel's lid like this:
By boring holes all the way around, I assure even drainage and collection and then I finished the lid by stretching some fiberglass screen underneath the lid before screwing it on. The water isn't "filtered" but it does come through quite clear of debris.
I aligned the spigot and overflow on this one since there were already holes in the tank. I also had no major plans to set this one up in a series, so it made sense to line them up. Here is a close up of the assembled hose bib:
Not too shabby if you are careful when you bore the holes.
So there you have it. I hope this guide is helpful and I will be updating the pictures soon to provide close up step-by-step images to compliment the directions.
To begin, you find a barrel. You cannot use just any barrel if you plan on 1.) keeping your plants alive and healthy or 2.) consuming the products of your specific plants. Basically what I'm talking about is getting your hands on "food grade" barrels. These can be 55 gallon blue drums that have held vegetables, pickles, water...or they might be brand new and have never contained anything. I prefer pickle barrels, which can be obtained conveniently nearby and are definitely safe to use.
There are just a few simple steps to consider before you are all set. Once you have the barrel chosen, you have to get a few parts from your local hardware store to make everything work. Since this project is purely objective, you can decide how best to make your barrel function. I choose to go cheap and simple so this is what I buy:
1 - "Food grade" barrel (55-58 gallons)
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
Once you have all of this, you bore 2 holes in the barrel. Depending on where you want your overflow to go, you can either line these holes up (one near the top of the barrel and one very close to the bottom) or you can offset the overflow to redirect the runoff water. Since I was setting my barrels up in series to collect more water, I set my overflow 90 degrees to the left of my spigot.
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| From Permaculture |
The top of the barrel is also something to consider. Some systems I've seen have a sealed assembly to get water from the downspout into the barrel.
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
Now comes the tricky part: assembly. After you bore your holes for the faucet and the overflow, you take a washer on the outside and one on the inside followed by a nut on the inside of each. I also used the silicone to seal the washers so there was no leaking around the threads of the hose adapter or the hose bib. Finally, I spray shellac on the inside of each fixture to prevent any major corrosion of the steel nuts and washers. I only recently made this discovery after using my barrels for a season and seeing the terrible rust that these nuts and washers build up. They aren't made for this kind of wet situation so there is no coating or galvanization to them. You might be able to find these supplies in a stainless or galvanized version, but I doubt they will be as inexpensive.
Here is a picture of another barrel I did next to my garden:
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
And there you have it. Now for the price. You can buy barrels like these or fancier starting around $50 or $60 and going up to as much as $200 or more. I paid $20 for the barrel and about another $10 for the metal supplies. The tube of silicone was about $4 and the can of shellac ran me $8, but remember that you use very little of both and therefore the total cost of such an item is negligible.
So basically, for about $30 you can have a terra cotta like barrel containing 55-58 gallons of water to use on anything you need to water.
Now I will add some info to answer frequently asked questions.
You don't get enough pressure from these to run a sprayer. These barrels, even raised up a few feet are better for filling watering cans than for spraying a flower bed. The only system I have found to work reasonably well is to attach a soaker hose to the barrel. There is enough pressure build-up to force a small amount of water out of the soaker into a garden evenly. Think of it this way: your house faucet has between 40 and 60 psi coming out. For every 2.5 feet you raise a rain barrel, you get 1 psi. Raised 10 feet, you get 4 lbs of pressure...yeah.
In a heavy rain that lasts a couple hours, you can easily fill a 55 gallon barrel. This depends on the size of roof you are draining into the barrel, but most of the time, if you connect to a long gutter, you have a lot of water collection happening.
At the pace of 1-2 psi, it can take a pretty significant amount of watering to empty 55 gallons. When you are using a barrel to water your garden, you tend to be directing the water onto the most important areas, the base of the plants. This means no over watering or wasted water from a sprinkler, so the water tends to go a bit farther than you would think.
I raise my barrels up for both convenience as well as extra pressure. You also may have to take the grade or slope of your property into account when placing your barrels. If your garden is uphill from your barrels and you want to use a hose, you may run into pressure problems since the end of the hose needs to be lower than the connection to the barrel. You can build stands for your barrels like I have, or you can simply set them up on cinder blocks. The options are limited only by your imagination. I just saw this picture online, showing a really nice setup:
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| From Permaculture |
Thursday, June 21, 2012
New projects!
I have new pictures of the garden to add to the Picasa albums, but in the meantime I'll post a new project which I will soon be undertaking!
Since the new child has been here, I've been attempting to keep everything maintained, but I'm getting to a point now where I can actually begin new things. I finished one of my lettuce boxes yesterday. I also drove a staple directly into my hand accidentally...yup.
My next small project (now that I have a router table) is going to be a shelf that also holds my bicycle. Here is the picture:
This thing looks AWESOME. I'm still not sure how I am going to mount it so that it doesn't end up tearing half my wall down, but after I decide on a good anchoring system and an efficient place to mount it, I'm going to own one of these!
Since the new child has been here, I've been attempting to keep everything maintained, but I'm getting to a point now where I can actually begin new things. I finished one of my lettuce boxes yesterday. I also drove a staple directly into my hand accidentally...yup.
My next small project (now that I have a router table) is going to be a shelf that also holds my bicycle. Here is the picture:
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| From Home Projects |
The garden turned out pretty good. I have a lot of work to do at the end of the season to prepare for next year, but for now things are really working out well.
We also bought a share of a CSA this season. The first drop off was today. Mostly just greens and a couple of beets, but this summer is going to rock with all the food I plan on making.
My garden has already yielded a handful of pea pods and about 8 radishes. There are at least a dozen cucumbers already growing and about the same amount of roma tomatoes also on the vines. This should be a pretty decent year as long as the rains keep coming in the next few weeks.
On a final note, I got the picture albums organized now so that it is easier to find all of the different projects and postings. More to come very soon!
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
One book down...
I finished Introduction to Permaculture this morning. What a life changing book. There aren't many you can say that about and really mean, but this one is definitely in the top 3 books I've ever read.
My next literary venture is Bill Mollison's Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlement. I also have Permaculture: A Designer's Manual being delivered tomorrow. My next move is to finish my rain barrels to completion and then I'll move on to more advanced elements.
I planted nearly everything in the garden yesterday. This year, the list looks something like:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Cucumbers
Peapods
Green and Yellow Beans
Sweet Peppers
Roma Tomatoes
Celery
Kohlrabi
Carrots
Parsnips
Radishes
White Onions
Green Onions
Not too shabby, if it all grows. I used some older seed when starting the tray indoors, but I bought some new stuff for the root veggies and other plants I started outside. I haven't had much luck keeping my seeds from one season to the next. Perhaps I need a better place to store them.
My next literary venture is Bill Mollison's Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlement. I also have Permaculture: A Designer's Manual being delivered tomorrow. My next move is to finish my rain barrels to completion and then I'll move on to more advanced elements.
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| From Stuff I Found |
I planted nearly everything in the garden yesterday. This year, the list looks something like:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Cucumbers
Peapods
Green and Yellow Beans
Sweet Peppers
Roma Tomatoes
Celery
Kohlrabi
Carrots
Parsnips
Radishes
White Onions
Green Onions
Not too shabby, if it all grows. I used some older seed when starting the tray indoors, but I bought some new stuff for the root veggies and other plants I started outside. I haven't had much luck keeping my seeds from one season to the next. Perhaps I need a better place to store them.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
Just a quick update here. I finally edited the albums in Picasa. There are 3 new ones and one or two of the older ones got a facelift. Now you can view all the garden images in the Garden album, the home projects in the Home Projects album and (my personal favorite), the permaculture projects in the Permaculture album. Basically, I made it easier to find what you may be looking for at any given time. Of course this totally ruins many of the previous links I had posted to images, so disregard those older posts that have links in them.
I'm nearly finished with Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture which means Permaculture One is in my near future. So far I have learned many ways to adapt our current living situation into an ideal permaculture solution. The big problem with implementing many of these ideas is the money it will take to build things like greenhouses and chicken coops. We are getting the gardens and yard together now, so it shouldn't be long before we can concentrate on other things. One step at a time, right?
Finally, I finished the new vegetable garden beds. Here is a "before" and "after" comparison.
Before--
After--
It is a bit difficult to really get the idea of how the original looked, due largely to the fact that I took rather inadequate pictures, but you can kind of visualize it. Now I have 4 trough-style lettuce boxes to rebuild and hang from the 4x4 posts and I'm totally finished.
I'm nearly finished with Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture which means Permaculture One is in my near future. So far I have learned many ways to adapt our current living situation into an ideal permaculture solution. The big problem with implementing many of these ideas is the money it will take to build things like greenhouses and chicken coops. We are getting the gardens and yard together now, so it shouldn't be long before we can concentrate on other things. One step at a time, right?
Finally, I finished the new vegetable garden beds. Here is a "before" and "after" comparison.
Before--
 |
| From Garden |
After--
 |
| From Garden |
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Natural weed control and cool sciency stuff
So I have a confession to make. I have no conviction.
Well, I guess that isn't totally true, I have strong conviction about many things. I have no conviction when it comes to social networking. Ultimately, I suppose I should say that I bend to peer pressure from my wife every time she gets into something new.
I fought Facebook for several years. Then my wife found "Scramble" and I "had to play it with her"... I have 117 friends on Facebook now. I didn't want to join Twitter, then my wife told me the singer from my favorite band always wrote really funny stuff...I have a Twitter account that I never use now. Most recently, it was Pinterest.
For anyone not familiar with Pinterest, it is basically a glorified virtual cork board where you can cut and paste any image and link from any website (except Facebook) to your "boards" to keep track of the things you are interested in. This used to be called "bookmarking" but that took too much effort apparently. The nice thing about the site is that you don't just "pin" the things you like, but you can also follow people and "repin" the things that you like that they like...(getting confused yet?) So I had to get a Pinterest account to see all the things my wife likes. And now I'm addicted to the "gardening" category. The problem with the site? When something is popular, it gets re-pinned a lot. When this happens, you are often browsing the exact same image 20 times in the category because everyone is pinning it at that time.
2 things I love about Pinterest: I can pin things from my own blog, potentially increasing my readership...(muahahaha!) and I have found at least 3 things that I can't believe I lived without before finding them.
So now that I have created an elaborate introduction for this blog entry, I will get to the point. I found an awesome natural remedy to weeds. Basically, all you do is mix a large quantity of vinegar (I used plain old, cheap white vinegar) with a splash of normal dish soap and BOOM, dead weeds. Since it is mostly vinegar, there are no harmful chemicals and it is 100% effective in one day. I just used a normal, dollar store spray bottle but you have to be careful not to overspray, as this will also kill grass and other plants.
Secondly, more science discoveries in the land of the vegan urban farmer! I found an awesome website for determining sun factors all year round. The site is Sun Earth Tools and it has a calculator for finding sun elevation in the sky, azimuth (the path of the sun in degrees across the sky) as well as solar noon and other factors related to the sun. For me, building a greenhouse soon will require knowledge of how high the sun is in the sky during winter (for the correct angle of the glass wall) and during summer (for the correct length of overhang on the South side of the house). I have been sketching my greenhouse for a bit now and this site has proved to be priceless for information on how to build. Check it out if you ever have time!
Well, I guess that isn't totally true, I have strong conviction about many things. I have no conviction when it comes to social networking. Ultimately, I suppose I should say that I bend to peer pressure from my wife every time she gets into something new.
I fought Facebook for several years. Then my wife found "Scramble" and I "had to play it with her"... I have 117 friends on Facebook now. I didn't want to join Twitter, then my wife told me the singer from my favorite band always wrote really funny stuff...I have a Twitter account that I never use now. Most recently, it was Pinterest.
For anyone not familiar with Pinterest, it is basically a glorified virtual cork board where you can cut and paste any image and link from any website (except Facebook) to your "boards" to keep track of the things you are interested in. This used to be called "bookmarking" but that took too much effort apparently. The nice thing about the site is that you don't just "pin" the things you like, but you can also follow people and "repin" the things that you like that they like...(getting confused yet?) So I had to get a Pinterest account to see all the things my wife likes. And now I'm addicted to the "gardening" category. The problem with the site? When something is popular, it gets re-pinned a lot. When this happens, you are often browsing the exact same image 20 times in the category because everyone is pinning it at that time.
2 things I love about Pinterest: I can pin things from my own blog, potentially increasing my readership...(muahahaha!) and I have found at least 3 things that I can't believe I lived without before finding them.
So now that I have created an elaborate introduction for this blog entry, I will get to the point. I found an awesome natural remedy to weeds. Basically, all you do is mix a large quantity of vinegar (I used plain old, cheap white vinegar) with a splash of normal dish soap and BOOM, dead weeds. Since it is mostly vinegar, there are no harmful chemicals and it is 100% effective in one day. I just used a normal, dollar store spray bottle but you have to be careful not to overspray, as this will also kill grass and other plants.
Secondly, more science discoveries in the land of the vegan urban farmer! I found an awesome website for determining sun factors all year round. The site is Sun Earth Tools and it has a calculator for finding sun elevation in the sky, azimuth (the path of the sun in degrees across the sky) as well as solar noon and other factors related to the sun. For me, building a greenhouse soon will require knowledge of how high the sun is in the sky during winter (for the correct angle of the glass wall) and during summer (for the correct length of overhang on the South side of the house). I have been sketching my greenhouse for a bit now and this site has proved to be priceless for information on how to build. Check it out if you ever have time!
Monday, May 7, 2012
Plants!
So a quick update here:
I had 3 Roma tomato seedlings and 3 green pepper seedlings getting too big for the seed tray in the basement. This week I got the garden started, perhaps a bit prematurely. The tomatoes have doubled in size in just about 5 days and the peppers went in today. Next will be the 2 cucumber seedlings that already have vines coming in. Oh boy am I behind.
On another topic, I'm halfway through my permaculture book and I have totally changed my design for the chicken coop. I'll post the drawings when I get them done. Essentially I plan on building the same size coop and almost the same layout but it will also have an integrated greenhouse for geothermal heat radiation into the coop. This way, one structure serves multiple purposes and I don't need any electricity at the coop. Sketches soon!
- Posted using my iPhone
I had 3 Roma tomato seedlings and 3 green pepper seedlings getting too big for the seed tray in the basement. This week I got the garden started, perhaps a bit prematurely. The tomatoes have doubled in size in just about 5 days and the peppers went in today. Next will be the 2 cucumber seedlings that already have vines coming in. Oh boy am I behind.
On another topic, I'm halfway through my permaculture book and I have totally changed my design for the chicken coop. I'll post the drawings when I get them done. Essentially I plan on building the same size coop and almost the same layout but it will also have an integrated greenhouse for geothermal heat radiation into the coop. This way, one structure serves multiple purposes and I don't need any electricity at the coop. Sketches soon!
- Posted using my iPhone
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